Reviews of Razorhurst and Shutter

Razorhurst by Justine Larbelestier is a murder mystery set in 1930s Sydney Australia with a paranormal bent. The two adhoc investigators of the murder are a girl and a woman with the ability to see the ghosts of the dead, including the dead man who was killed who keeps telling them who he thinks did it. Only problem with this is that the dead are confused about their own lives and have weird motives with regard to how the future moves forward without them.

One of the most intriguing features of this book is the omniscient voice. Omniscient used to be the standard method of storytelling back in the 1800s, but it has fallen out of vogue. I've never actually used it myself. It has always felt like it would take away too much from the close pov that I like to use. Au contraire! The master Justine Larbelestier here uses omniscient brilliantly. Short little chapters from different points of view are interspersed with slightly longer chapters from the povs of the two main characters, Dymphna and Kelpie (love those names, BTW). I never felt like I wasn't close to either Dymphna or Kelpie, and I never felt like the short intersped chapters made me lose interest in the main forward movement of the story. But they did make me feel like I understood a wider picture of the time period and culture, and of particular other characters before moving on. I am definitely going to try this technique sometime in the future if I find a book or story that would lend itself well.

And in case you're wondering, hell yeah, I recommend this book. I love the time period, which I've never really seen done in Australia. The research is meticulous. I loved the focus on women and women's power and vulnerability. I loved Kelpie's insistence on getting away from welfare. I loved how deeply immersed I was in the whole book, but particularly in Kelpie and Dymphna's goals.

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Shutter by Courtney Alameda is a horror with an interesting supernatural twist. The protagonist, Micheline Helsing, is a descendant of THE Van Helsing and it's her job to use her special eyesight to take photographs of the dead that send them back where they belong. Only she comes across a ghost so powerful and so different than none of her usual tricks work against it. And the ghost is targeting her own friends and family members to kill.

When I read books these days, I always read as a fellow author. That means I am looking at the craft and the story-telling. And I'm always trying to learn something from other authors. Well, to be honest, that means I'm trying to steal things for use in my own stories. What will I be stealing from Courtney? I felt like her use of language was just superb. For example:

"I followed Damian out into an anemic, waning night. Spindly trees lined the wide avenue, shedding the gangrenous leaves of fall. The world smelled terminal, waiting for winter and rot. October in San Francisco was usually warm, but this year, fog frothed over the peninsula, carried by a chilly wind. I crossed my arms over my chest, hugging my camera and belt." (62)

I felt like I was getting all my senses pinged here. She mixed description with emotion and vivid texture. I loved how every word throbs with meaning. And this is just one paragraph. The whole book is filled with quotable bits and pieces, in addition to a great plot and interesting characters. I, for one, did not see the big plot twist near the end and I was glad I hadn't, because it made me care that
much more about Micheline. I'm not usually much of a horror fan and I don't really care for vampire lore per se, so I don't feel like I was primed to love this book, but love it I did. Hopefully you'll see some of Courtney's influence in my later books!

Oh, and just for the sake of it, I'm linking here to a nasty review of the book, which cited multiple examples of the very passages I loved as things that he hated. Is there some misogyny latent in the review? Well, I'll let you make your own judgment of that. But as for me, I doubt this guy would have said anything like this if he hadn't been a man and Courtney hadn't been a woman writing about a woman.

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1061782052?book_show_action=false&page=1